Month: December 2016

I am so tired of the usual, ho-hum stories we hear at events sponsored by eating disorders organizations. I am tired of the usual, “I was very sick, I went to a wonderful treatment place and then, I got better” narrative. I am tired of the lies, tired of the euphemisms, tired of the half-truths.

I am planning a presentation that will tell the real story. Such a story would be censored at NEDA, and censored at many of those “mental health” presentations. I’m sick of censorship. I’m sick of the massive editing out of “triggers.” This presentation will be like none of the usual fare, simply because it will contain information that the System and its elite would never want the public to hear.

I need to decide on a frame. Each time you give a presentation it needs a frame. “These things will be included and these will be left out.” This is your framework, what it is about…or not. One challenge for me is to weed out topics that are too tangential, and to include thorough explanations since many in the audience are not at a level of basic understanding of the topic. I cannot assume they know what I am talking about without this grounding.

Back when I was in so-called “treatment,” I recall the censorship. I remember one day I mentioned the word “cancer” and was immediately told to shut up (by staff) even before I finished my sentence. Had they heard me out, they would have realized I was making a valid analogy, not speaking of anything specific about cancer.

Looking back now with much hindsight, the staff in such places lacked insight, and were devoid of realistic perspective on what we were going through. Most of the MD’s just plain didn’t care. The only ones with smarts were the patients themselves. This was where one would find amazing wisdom, if only someone had listened.

Many patients had given up. Some came to the world of mental health with much trauma in their backgrounds and then, went for years or decades without even one chance to speak of that trauma. The silencing over many years led them to believe there were no such chances anytime, anywhere. They had kept it all bottled up, telling no one, hoping that sometime they might get a chance to examine why they’d ended up in the System or had sought help to begin with. This chance never came.

Being out of the System, for me, means Freedom of Speech now. No staff, no idiotic censorship. I am out here bumbling on my own, allowing myself to make mistakes and learning that there are indeed awesome ways to self-express without worries of further silencing.

Today, HR 34 passed the Senate, after it had been approved by the House. Now, the Pres has to sign it into law. What is HR 34? It’s called the Tsunami Act. Seriously! They made it look like they were passing Tsunami notification legislation, but inside this act was MURPHY.

We tried to stop it, made calls, everything. Bernie was on our side (he isn’t always).

This bill has nothing to do with Access to Care as a Human Right. This bill has everything to do with taking away our rights. The bill supports force. The bill supports using the police more, not less, in so-called “mental health.”

NEDA, shame on you! You’ve been pushing and pushing this bill. Well? Who are your sponsors, your so-called Gold, Silver, and Bronze sponsors? These are the force-based centers that will profit from the bill. They paid NEDA, NEDA publicized how great the bill is.

What does this mean for people with ED? You can be forced into “care” now far more easily, even if you’ve tried it before and found it made you worse. Where do you expect to go? A horse farm, paid for by Medicaid? Sorry to say, many of you will end up rotting in State, and will wonder what happened. Thank NEDA.

Murphy, who is heavily PAID by a number of pharm companies, was pushing this bill. What’s behind it? Money. Not ours, surely.

HIPAA is eroding. You think you have confidentiality? Think again. If, according to the State (or the “team,”) blowing your confidentiality is “for your own good,” they will.

Let’s say you are living in the college dorms. You’ve been bingeing and vomiting for about a month. Now, if they want, they can call your parents, they might notify your advisor, your work-study boss, your instructors, your roommate. Now I’m all for communication, but I think who knows and who doesn’t should be YOUR choice. Not anymore.

SAMHSA is losing funding, as well as PAIMI. These organizations fought for your rights and fought to find alternatives to force.

People deemed “mentally retarded” can also be forced into unnecessary psychiatry.

Assisted Outpatient Treatment, a euphemism for court-ordered injections, will now be enforced in all 50 states. By the way, AOT has NEVER been shown to be helpful nor effective. The injections are very dangerous and death rates from them are too high to be at all “acceptable risk.”

If you were hoping for “access to care,” unfortunately, that’s not what’s in this bill. You will certainly get access, but not the kind you want, not that wonderful summer camp you dreamed of (it doesn’t exist). You will get force. If it is forced, it’s not “care.”

In honor of this tragic day, I’ve decided to include another chapter in my book, which I feel might come in handy. It’ll be called “How to say no to psychiatry.”

Like this:

Nurses are well aware of this phenomena. It can indeed happen, but for the most part, “lacking insight” will not mean the patient in question is “mentally ill,” nor not competent, nor in any way needing a psychiatrist.

Why? Imagine a busy emergency room. Holiday season is upon us, meaning that in the northern hemisphere, some of the roadways might be slick with ice. The nurses themselves had a tough time getting into work this morning as traffic was backed up considerably due to the weather.

They shake their heads at each other, knowing that today will be busier than usual. Sure enough, they hear word of an eight-car pileup on the highway. The EMT’s got to the accident victims and are quickly bringing them in. Four are in desperate condition and two are elderly with scrapes and bruises. The other drivers were okay and sent to other emergency departments just to be looked over.

Let’s call our nurse Martha. Martha and her coworker Jane are assigned to a man who is bleeding very badly. They are the first to attend to him. The goal is to stop the bleeding (which the EMT’s have already been working on) and to see about his condition. How much blood was lost?

The man is in MEDICAL shock. This is due to bleeding and undoubtedly a few broken bones. Bleeding causes a lack of blood flow to the entire body. The man’s pupils are dilated, his pulse is weak and rapid, he appears sweaty and his complexion is grayish. He has no clue where he is and doesn’t seem aware that he was in a car accident.

The above is due to confusion from his injuries. He doesn’t even have enough blood flow to his brain to carry on a conversation.

What does he need right now? He lacks insight into his condition, right? Do we need to immediately summon a psychiatrist, who will be COMPLETELY USELESS?

No! His condition is temporary. When he is better, he’ll be able to think straight.

Later that morning, a guy is brought in who was said to be hanging around the local convenience store in a daze. The employees saw him and called 911 because they were concerned about him.

Once in the ER, Martha is assigned to him. She asks him questions which for some reason, he cannot seem to answer. What now? Should she summon a psychiatrist, who will be COMPLETELY USELESS?

No! She needs to take his vitals first. She notices a rapid pulse, over 150. Should she conclude he is “anxious” and summon a psychiatrist, who will be COMPLETELY USELESS?

Maybe she should have the regular ER doc come and order a tox screen. Examine his skin condition, his eyes, and his coordination as well. She notices blood in his hair. He has no clue how that got there. Does this mean he is lacking insight, “mentally ill” and “requires” a psychiatrist, who will be COMPLETELY USELESS?

The doc comes and examines what appears to be a blow to the man’s head. From its shape and depth, the injury was inflicted by a hard and heavy object, possibly a crowbar. The man has no recollection of this, however. Should Martha conclude that this injury was self-inflicted and that the man is “dangerous” and that the psychiatrist should be summoned immediately? Yeah, but Martha knows about the psychiatrist’s USELESSNESS. God knows I have repeated this enough times.

The doc does a brief neuro test and writes for a neuro workup by a specialist. The man is clearly uncoordinated and at this point, they have learned that he works construction, meaning he isn’t usually poorly coordinated and undoubtedly he usually has better balance than he does now. To fix this, should they summon the psychiatrist, who cannot do a darned thing about the man’s “broken brain”?

Ah, broken brains, eh? Yes, the man’s skull is slightly cracked. Do we send this cracked nut to the funny farm for a few months?

Uh…..

He is diagnosed with a concussion. They decide to keep him overnight just to ensure his safety due to his disorientation and poor coordination.

]He asks for a telephone so he can call his wife. Since he “lacks insight,” should the staff deliberately listen in on his phone conversation with his wife? After all, the medical personnel’s having power over patients trumps his human right to privacy, isn’t that correct?

The police show up. They want to question him. There was a break-in at his workplace. The last thing he recalls, apparently, is finishing his shift, leaving, and then, being grabbed from behind.

Psychiatry would be in order, therefore, right? Broken brain! We certainly need these COMPLETELY USELESS dudes with their impeccable beards and neckties right now.

Like this:

This is what Congressman Chris Murphy just said a bit ago, “No difference between a broken bone and a broken brain.”

Okay, junior high geniuses. I will offer my brain as sample here. You can’t see it, but as far as I know, it is still inside my skull. As you know, the human skull does a terrific job of protecting the brain.

Now, my brain has been determined “totally and permanently disabled.” Really? I can walk. I can talk. These are governed by the brain, which, lo and behold, works! Not only that, I can write these words to you all. Now, if my brain didn’t work, that is, if I were brain dead, I would be either appearing comatose, or outright dead. Do you think either of these are possible? Well, look again!

I did laundry this morning, grocery shopping, did ironing, replaced the toilet paper with more toilet paper, paired up my socks (that took real thinking!) and cooked lunch. I also scrubbed the floor and made a phone call. That is, I used a machine, and then, once I got a connection, carried out a reasonable conversation with a bill collector. At the end of the conversation I wished him a good day, joked around a bit, then told him my doggie says hi.

No, Dear Junior High Geniuses. as you already know, since you are very very smart, what makes you a nut is that others see you as one. That is, the doctors, who somehow saw me as crazy, surely needed new glasses!

Those psychiatrists need to stop running around with nut-colored glasses. Maybe you Junior High Geniuses can come up with a cure for that odd habit.

Till then, stay away from those that diagnose you in any way. I think it’s probably harmful to the brain.

And send this one off to Chris Murphy, who could use a day or two in your Junior High Classrooms right next to you Geniuses.

I am laughing my fool head off. I was never bipolar, yet at the end of shrinkage I was accused of mania many times. That was so unfounded. Here’s why:

I do believe mania exists. Of course it does! It’s not an illness (where are the germs?) nor “damaged brain,” nor fucked-up biochemistry. In fact, many adolescents experience mania as part of hormonal changes. College students who stay up all night can become manic due to lack of sleep. Imagine what shift workers go through! However, not everyone is prone to mania. Only some. They’re not “disordered.” They just have to know they’re prone to it, and next time, don’t stay up all night.

So if I were indeed one of these folks, that is, if I were indeed “bipolar” as they claimed, then this is how I would have reacted to sleep deprivation: I would have gotten an elevated mood. After many days of not sleeping well, I would have started thinking unrealistically. I would have not even felt tired. I would have felt revved. After a while, my thinking would have been quite distorted indeed. I might have thought I was engaged to a movie star, or that I that I personally could solve world hunger in about an hour. Or maybe I’d party real hard, have many sex partners, get loud, drive 100 mph, and partake in crimes no person would think to commit.

Now, Dear Junior High Kid, Did that happen? I went five years with the most horrific insomnia ever, barely sleeping, yet my mood did not go soaring, I didn’t leap tall buildings in a single bound, I didn’t save the world from imminent world war (nor think I had), I didn’t do any illegal drugs nor sell them nor snort anything, I didn’t take multiple plane rides to very scary countries, nor even come close to thinking I was engaged to a movie star.

Instead, what was it like for me to lose sleep? I was exhausted, I felt dragged out constantly, I was so tired I felt like I would fall over and recall having to wait in line at cash registers and feeling like if this line didn’t budge I would keel over because I was dying to lie down. I recall putting one hand on the counter to steady myself. I was so afraid of collapsing and embarrassing myself. I lived like that for five years.

That was it. Fatigue and more fatigue. I couldn’t get anything done at all, especially long-term projects, since I’d struggle to keep my eyes open all the time.

Dear Junior High Geniuses, Does this sound like mania? Does this sound like I was “revved” or “psychotic” or “grandiose”?

Dear Junior High Kids, Please award yourselves degrees, and demote those idiot doctors that “treated” me all those years. How could they be so dumb? How could they have authority over so many people, telling them this bullshit and convincing them of “disability” or convincing them they need so much “treatment” they need to stop working to get such “treatment”? This, to me, putting people out of work, is one the worst of psychiatry’s crimes.

Reading these excerpts from psychiatric journals makes me sick. They are saying all this hocus-pocus about using “antipsychotic medications” for “schizophrenia” and then going on and on about “symptoms.”

Listen: I was never psychotic, never manic. Once, I was hypomanic but that was a drug reaction. Not manic, just kinda joking around too much. Even then, I was sleeping fine and was not psychotic. I have never heard voices, though I often wished I could. Does anyone have any LSD I could try?

They tried me on Thorazine because they didn’t know what else to do. They were clueless and, if you don’t mind me saying, stupid. Grasping at straws. Actually, I spied the doc leafing through the Physician’s Desk Reference choosing a pill for me. Why? Because I had shown up at the hospital begging for a “cure” for my eating disorder, which they’d been claiming was nonexistent. So? I guess they thought I might be delusional that I had one. Or maybe exaggerating it. I wasn’t. I think they simply didn’t believe it was possible. Or just didn’t listen.

After 2000, oh, I’d say sometime when I was at Emerson finishing up, that’s when I was on three neuroleptics, three anticonvulsants, and various miscellaneous pills. Please, someone, tell me why I needed such a hefty cocktail?

Please note: That’s when my weight doubled.

When I asked to get off any of them (those rare moments when I dared), my shrink insisted I “needed” all those pills. Really? Gosh I am sitting here laughing my fool head off.

Meanwhile, everything’s totally okay here. For whatever reason I feel just fine these days, stronger than I have been in ages and doing fine.

Oh, except I am addicted to cuddling with Puzzle, writing, and ironing my clothes. And riding the bus. Yesterday I didn’t have correct change so I left a “tip.” With a smile. If anyone has a problem with that, please buzz off. Or, oh, talk it over with your “therapist,” ha ha.